Story 8 - Hidden Attachments

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Welcome. Cassandra’s Tales and Truths is an anthology series that utilizes the wisdom of the Delphic Maxims. In this episode, the eighth episode, Cassandra tackles what must feel like a cliche. After all, we’ve heard it a thousand times or more, right? But putting something so fundamental into practice is quite a different matter. Or story. There’s just so many ways that things can go wrong. And only one way to go right.

So, wanderer, be thyself.

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Hicket had never seen a dead body before, but there it was. And it wasn’t what he was expecting, had he expected to stumble across one someday. It was the sort of thing he had never thought about, but then again, it was always within the realm of possibility. Life was cruel, people crueler, and the woods beyond his village were a prime setting for such cruelties to come out and dance. Plenty of people over the years had come out of the woods injured, bloody, and limping with stories of shadowy figures swarming them with malice. Hicket worked in the town’s only tavern. And whenever he worked–though he tried to keep his head down–his ears would be filled with these and many other tales. But none of them had ever featured a dead body. 

But there was–in that moment, at least–a dead body lying in front of him. The woods had already begun the process of reclaiming the body, small rodents, smaller insects, and not so small worms were eating away whoever it was. The body was now hardly recognizable even as a person. Its silhouette testified that once upon a time it had, in fact, been a person, but beyond that, there was hardly anything left. There was clothing, for one, but Hicket could hardly make sense of the garments sprawled out across the ground in front of him and draped over what remained of the body. The bold colors and clean cuts were wholly unfamiliar to Hicket whose world was colored by the earthly hues of cheap dyes that were vogue in his town. 

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Swanhollow lived off of very little, on the few coins travellers would spend on their way through, but Hicket had long since start to wonder if any of them were truly living. Not that anyone else complained. In fact, many of those travellers would admire the lives they caught glimpses of on their travels through Swanhollow. It wasn’t a rich town, in the most common sense of the term. It did not have much by way of a gold reserve, but it was a town that did not have much need for gold. Its citizens were content to barter and trade as all ancestors had done. And there was plenty to trade for. The small amount of gold that came in was enough for everything else. It worked well, those unfamiliar merchants would remark. And there was a sense of balance in Swanhollow that simply could not be seen elsewhere. 

But for someone as ill content as Hicket, finding reasons to complain was as second nature as breathing. It was his tendency, and really, the true predicament Swanhollow gave him was how hard it was to escape himself and this bitter nature. Hicket did not enjoy his life, he would tell you, but it was not the life itself that bothered him so much as what it was rooted in. Glimpses of his face in polished tables or clean mugs caused a dull ache in his chest. But that was simply a matter of association. Many of his discontents were simply a matter of association, but he was not aware of it.

Now, Hicket was not an unhandsome man; both the ladies and gentleman of Swanhollow would be quick to say as much. And as a consequence, he was not unliked. The townspeople would have been quick to add, however, that they did not think they knew him all that well. Many watched him grow up or grew up with him but could not really describe him beyond the face they saw everyday.

And he could not describe himself, really only that he was unhappy, because he felt as if there was a gap in him, somewhere deep inside. It was a space that he felt the urge to fill somehow. But he could not tell himself how.

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Hicket could hardly bring himself to leave the body where it lay. Though he had never had a sense of morbid curiosity, he was nevertheless curious. But it was not death that pulled him in, he realized. It was a novelty of sorts. After all, besides this  unfortunate moment of discovery, this person bore no connection to Hicket’s life, and so Hicket could hardly pull himself away. 

After a moment, he noticed the bag lying beside the body, unclaimed by anyone else, not even the elements. Hicket started to lift it, only to find it heavier than he had expected. Not that he knew what to expect, once again. It might have been more about muscle memory than anything else. There were many bags around the tavern, both in front of the bar and behind, those bags were typically much lighter. Though this presented more of a challenge, there was something thrilling about it. 

He pulled it open with a ferocity that he had never shown before, and in his haste, some of the contents spilled out. Nothing of interest, Hicket thought. It was just heavy books, and while that could be of some interest to the right person–he would admit–to him, they were not. One in particular stood out to him as vaguely familiar or as reminiscent of the ledger kept in the tavern. Hicket found the book and its contents dull. It was just a collection of numbers, after all. Some of them were attached to the names of travellers Hicket would never see again, had he even seen them the first time. What stories lie beneath those numbers never interested Hicket. What goods might have exchanged hands, debts incurred, all of those things, they felt irrelevant to him. This other one and all of its many contents would be no different. 

What remained in the bag was a few sets of clothes, some rations, a small knife, and identification papers. He studied each closely and realized what value they presented to him. The clothing was just as fine and valuable as what was draped across the body. The rations were practical. The knife was imposing. But the identification papers were intriguing and took up the most of his attention. 

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On one hand, they spoke to who the body had once been. Nicede Froxx had been the name he bore, born in a city Hicket had never heard of before but must have been a great ways away. The noted region had been mentioned in the tavern by a weary merchant or two, in conversations about the length and strength of the empire. 

Why Nicede Froxx was in Swanhollow’s forest was unclear. Perhaps it had been in the other books Hicket had been so quick to discard, but he could not be bothered to look. Instead, he dug deeper into the bag. Maybe the answer was there. Either way, something was there. Hicket's fingers scraped against some cloth as the bottom of the bag sunk away from his reach. He heard a small clacking in response to the movement. That sound motivated him further, and he let the bag drop to the ground to eliminate any escape. Those were coins. He did not need to see them for himself to be sure. There were coins, new clothes, and the papers needed for an entirely new life.

Hicket knew what he wanted to do almost instantly. After all, for all his problems–not lest of which was being dead–Nicede likely had what Hicket did not. What that was specifically Hicket could not say. He did not give himself a chance to realize this omission, however. There was a simplicity to this solution that he found appealing. Hicket did not want to be himself, though he did not know who he was to be disliked. And though he felt something like a hole in him, he did not know what he needed to fill it or just how he could find whatever this mystery piece was. Then again, perhaps it was not a hole. He was more inclined to think of it as a defect of some kind. But it was a defect Nicede likely did not have. 

There was no way for him to know, of course. He just wanted an answer and wrote one out without a second thought. And besides, Hicket might have thought if anything like doubt were to creep into his mind, what harm was there? Nothing could be done for the original Nicede…

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Hicket did not see a need for goodbyes when he left, and what was worse: most would have agreed. His grandparents had passed some time ago. And then buried so quickly that there had been no time left for goodbyes. Parents too, and there had never been any siblings to speak of. As a young man of three decades, he was old enough to carry grief like this in his pocket. Maybe it would never leave him, but it did not weigh him down, right?

Who is to say? The Hicket they didn’t know did not know struggled to procees emotions like sadness or much of anything. That was something else he did not like about himself. He did not like that this was a weight on his shoulders and chest that he could buckle beneath at any moment, and he found himself envious of anyone who did not feel that way. People like Nicede, he decided. Not that he had any way of knowing how accurate that was. 

There was no way of knowing who Nicede had been, but he left a place that Hicket could fill however he wanted. And so, having taken only an evening to think about it, Hicket put on the dead man’s clothes, filled the satchel with only a few items, and began walking from Swanhollow and from the Hicket he had been, the one he did not like so much with all his contradictions and so-called defects. 

With nothing of value around him, Hicket saw no need for sadness, no need for goodbyes, and no need to attempt anything like closure. He just rose in the hours of the early morning while the sun was still preparing to make its appearance and, without a word, began walking.

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Hicket was not entirely sure where to go, and there was a right answer to thia question. Because if anyone was expecting Nicede, they would see a break between the old person, whoever he might have been, and the man standing in front of them, then this hastily-put-together plan that Hicket had come up with would immediately fall apart. That was the only risk he faced, or so he thought. But what consumed his thoughts was how unavoidable that seemed. Nothing in Nicede’s pouch suggested what direction he had been going or had been coming from, who might be expecting him or who might be expecting to hear back from him. That all was a mystery. 

With that in mind, Hicket took off in what he thought was the opposite direction of Nicede’s birthplace, cutting through the still sleeping town square and out the other side. He wouldn’t miss that place, he thought. He wouldn’t miss his old life or himself. Nothing of the sort. There was simply nothing to miss. And the emptiness he used to feel was already filling. He wasn’t sure how or with what, but he felt noticeably better now. And in that perceived improvement, he found his confidence and wore it proudly into the world.

Hicket had never left his town before. There had never been much need or reason to, though he had overheard enough about the world to be able to assemble a half-hearted map of it all. Despite the ache in his feet from all the walking, Hicket was content. As Nicede, he smiled more than he had ever smiled before. He felt more at ease as he moved about, chatting and charming those around him. The name ‘Nicede Froxx’ rolled off of his tongue and landed well with everyone who heard it. 

Some along the way vaguely knew it or of it. Not well enough to place it or challenge the supposed keeper of the name. It hardly meant anything to them anyway. 

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But there was one person who took issue with what they heard: the keeper of a pair of shadowy eyes in the back of another tavern. Hicket had not noticed them at all. He was too struck by his surroundings–by paintings and gilded fishes that he’d have never seen before in his old life. That’s how he thought of it: his old life. A life that could have only been shaken off by donning another. Not the product of choices that can, at times, be hard. The answer, he believed, was to stop being Hicket and all that was associated with him. 

The uncharacteristic starry-eyed wonder was missed by his observer who did not know Nicede enough to see the difference between who should have been and who was. It was not the sort of thing those eyes could see or the thing they wanted to think about. As far as they were concerned, there simply was a consequence to an action Nicede was owed. A debt attached to the name, to a person, and divorced from the body that lay forgotten miles away. Fair or not, it was part of the life Hicket had draped himself in with a simple choice to be this other person and all that it entailed.

Such a reckoning did not come right away but waited for certainty, following Hicket as he moved about, watching him live with an infuriating ease. Though it did not understand what it was seeing, this debt watched Hicket and grew more convinced that this reckoning was deserved. He had simply assumed this life far too well, he took on habits that were not his, and he took on a spiteful air that he would have scorned before. The charade took on a new life and changed the player of the game.

Had Hicket stopped for a moment, he might have realized that he could no longer  recognize himself. Neither would anyone who had known him before. In many ways, he got his wish; he was not himself anymore.

So when the shadowy figure stood over him, late at night, long after Hicket had tucked himself into a bed prepared for Nicede, what could he have done? The glint of a small dagger revealed itself to the night air as Hicket thrashed beneath restraints. He forced out pleas, tried to explain what it was that he had done. That his sins were wholly different than Nicede’s. But by then, all those words were hollow. By then, he was Hicket in body, but in so many other ways, he was Nicede. The transformation had cut deep, almost as deep as the assassin’s knife.

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Cassandra’s Tales and Truths is a production of Miscellany Media Studios. It is written, edited, produced, and performed by MJ Bailey with music from the Sounds like an Earful music supply. Transcripts can be found at oracleofdusk.online. That’s one word. Oracleofdusk.online. Thanks!